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Prehistorians have had a long interest in the study of demography and associated processes. Scholars are not only interested in identifying such events in the archaeological record but in trying to locate their root cause, whether climatic, environmental, technological or cultural/social. However, no element of the archaeological record is directly associated with demographic factors such as population sizes, growth or fertility rates – these, therefore, must be inferred from the available data. This is often done through statistical analyses of different proxies, often number of archaeological sites, artefact densities, radiocarbon dates, palaeoanthropological data such as cemetery age profiles, or DNA.

Many such studies have successfully reconstructed important demographic factors, such as growth, fertility, mortality and dispersal rates for prehistoric societies. Other studies have identified significant population growths, crashes and bottlenecks. However, few studies have looked at different proxies for the same period and region, leaving open broader methodological issues such as whether some proxies are more sensitive than others to particular demographic processes or factors and what the impact of the scale of analysis on results is.

This workshop will create a space for scholars who have been considering prehistoric demography using differing, but complementary, datasets and approaches, with a view towards discussing issues raised by multi-proxy analysis, cross-disciplinarity, as well as any differences between hunter-gatherer and farmer societies’ population histories. We invite contributions that address these issues from either purely theoretical/methodological perspectives or through case studies.

For more information check the workshop website: https://crossdem18.wordpress.com